Yakuza Creator Toshihiro Nagoshi Opens His Own Studio Under NetEase Games

Toshihiro Nagoshi – known for creating the Yakuza series – left Sega in October last year along with Daisuke Sato. "I persisted and am here now thanks to what I learned from many people around me," he said at the time. "It’s credit to the colleagues who supported such that I could hone my mindset to continuously push boundaries." He was said to be joining NetEase Games in an unspecified capacity, but we now know what his role will be.

As reported by Gematsu, he has established and will lead Nagoshi Studios, under the NetEase Games banner. He also shared a rather poetic message to honour the founding of the new studio.

"The sea change that began in the entertainment industry in the late 20th century has brought even greater change to the industry in the 21st century," he wrote. "Changes to entertainment content, how it's made and the business model driven by technology and infrastructure advances have sparked a paradigm shift, and these changes are continuing to unfold with greater and greater speed."

"What only yesterday had been considered the height of cool now suddenly becomes outdated before you know it. For creators, this makes working in the industry today incredibly challenging. But no matter how the times change, I believe that what people essentially want from entertainment has not changed one bit."

Nagoshi went on to say that one of the major goals of the studio is to "create an open atmosphere." While it sounds simple enough, he elaborated that "creators cannot fully unleash their abilities in isolation." This would require open channels of communication between employees and management, irrespective of seniority or designations.

"This means not fearing mistakes while also not being afraid to correct them, and treating failures as assets. This means not giving up on reaching the ideal, and fighting to get closer to it," he continued.

He will be joined by the former Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio chief, Daisuke Sato, along with Kazuki Hosokawa, Koji Tokieda, Masao Shirosaki, Mitsunori Fujimoto, Naoki Someya, Taichi Ushioda, and Toshihiro Ando.

"Nagoshi Studio is committed to creating content for the world to enjoy from this atmosphere," concluded the message.

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